Family Photos
by mycookiegirl
Summary: A little one-shot I came up with. The Curtis family are getting their family photo taken, and while there, they experience an angry Shepard family, an annoyed Steve, and a crazy Two-Bit!


**Family photos**

** I do not own The Outsiders. S.E Hinton does :D **

"Dad, what's the point in having family photos for the whole family to see?" twelve year old Ponyboy Curtis asked his father. Darrell smiled and ruffled his youngest boy's hair.

"Well Ponyboy, you know Aunt Karen and Uncle Brian who live in Georgia?" Darrell asked his son. Ponyboy nodded. "Well, since we don't see them very often, they're going to forget what we all look like. That's why we need to send them photos to remind them of how we look." Darrell explained.

"Why can't they just come and visit us?" Ponyboy questioned with a frown on his forehead. Darrell sighed.

"I really don't know, son." He answered.

"Yeah, so just shut up!" Sodapop grinned and shoved his younger brother lightly. Ponyboy smirked and shoved his favorite big brother back. Their mother, Shannon, sighed and looked at her husband who sighed aswell.

"Boys, please behave." Shannon begged quietly as other families started turning around to stare at them. However, Ponyboy and Sodapop pretended that they couldn't hear their mother and continued to 'fight'.

"Darry, could you please tell your little brothers to behave." Shannon called to her oldest son, who was busy chatting up a curly haired brunette girl. When Darry heard his mother calling him, he instantly felt very annoyed with his little brothers for forcing him away from this lovely brunette girl whose name he didn't even know yet.

Darry knew better than to ignore his mother however; if he did then she would probably shout his name even louder and end up humiliating him in front of the pretty girl.

The oldest Curtis told the girl that he had to go, and angrily marched back over to his family. When he saw his little brothers rolling around on the floor, he crouched down and grabbed Ponyboy around the waist and lifted him up while the young boy squealed.

"Darry put me down! I'm not a baby!" Ponyboy whined. Darry just shook his head and kept a firm hold on his youngest brother. Sodapop looked up and frowned.

"Darry, why'd ya have to ruin our fun?" he growled, but when Darry raised his eyebrows, he quickly swivelled his eyes over to the ground.

"Oh look, Soda; it's Steve." Shannon said cheerily.

Sodapop's head instantly snapped up as he saw his best friend walking through the shiny white double-doors with his mother and father. Mrs Randle had a big smile on her face, however one of her beautiful blue eyes had a big black shadow over it. Mr Randle had a very angry expression on his face because he was told that he was not allowed to take alcohol into the 'Family Photo Building' (as Ponyboy liked to call it) and therefore had to leave it outside.

"Hey Steve, over here!" Sodapop shouted, and his best friend grabbed his mother's hand and started running over to the Curtis family.

Ponyboy gasped and hid his head in Darry's chest; he was scared that if he made eye contact with the older greaser, his head would somehow end up being ripped off of his body.

"I thought you said you weren't getting your family photo done today." Sodapop said curiously, staring up at Mrs Randle. Mrs Randle looked down at Sodapop and smiled warmly.

"Well, somehow my nose ended up healing quicker than what it should have. I've made sure that I always look when I walk now; to make sure I don't walk into any more lampposts." Mrs Randle chuckled.

Darry and Sodapop both sighed; they knew that it wasn't a lamppost that broke Mrs Randle's nose; it was her husband's fist. Little Ponyboy however, didn't suspect a thing.

"You're very silly, you know. I've never ever walked into a lamppost, and I'm almost twenty years younger than you." Ponyboy said with a bored expression.

Darry shook his little brother harshly, which resulted in him getting a punch in the shoulder. Darry was about to say something but Ponyboy started squirming in his arms.

"Don't hurt me!" Ponyboy cried, beginning to thrash around.

Darry sighed; whenever somebody told Ponyboy off for something, he always seemed to think that nobody loved him.

"Alright, I'm sorry for shaking you. I shouldn't have done it." Darry said softly and rubbed his little brother's back. Ponyboy smiled and settled in Darry's arms again.

"I wonder when Two-Bit's gonna get-" Steve started, but was interrupted by a loud scream.

Everybody in the room turned to the people who were currently getting their pictures taken, but quickly turned away when they saw which family it was. It was the Shepard family, who were having one of their family rows…in the Family Photo Building.

"You stupid kids! I swear if you all don't stop fighting, I'm gonna strap all of you right here!" The Shepard children's stepfather shouted, but to no avail. Tim and Curly were both on the floor punching each other in the face while Angela lay on the floor laughing. Mrs Shepard was trying to reason with the photographer, telling him that they would only be a few minutes, but the photographer wouldn't hear of it.

"I'm gonna give ya'll to the count of three. I'm just gonna take the photo, whether you're organized or not." He said glumly. Mrs Shepard got up and tried organizing the children, but there was no point in trying to get a nice family photo; Tim had busted Curly's lip and broke his nose while Curly had managed to knock one of Tim's bottom teeth out and had given his brother a black eye.

"Three!" the photographer yelled, and snapped the photo. "Next!" he ordered.

"That's it, everybody out!" The Shepard's stepfather demanded, and grabbed his two stepsons by their collars and marched out with Angela skipping behind in tow. Mrs Shepard wiped a tear away from her pale cheek and slowly walked out of the building.

"We're next!" a familiar voice yelled, and suddenly Two-Bit Mathews came running through the crowd with his mad family galloping behind him. Before anybody could protest, the Mathews family were already in their positions: Two-Bit's mother and sister sitting on the bench with Two-Bit standing up behind them with his hands on both their shoulders'.

"One…two…three!" the photographer yelled, and the whole family gave their craziest faces and poses as the camera snapped their family photo. When the photo was done, the family burst into fits of giggles and danced their way through the crowd to get to their friends.

"Hello, dear friends!" Two-Bit yelled, jumping up and down on the blue polished floor.

"Hey, Two-Bit!" Ponyboy exclaimed, wriggling out of Darry's arms and running up to one of his best friends.

Two-Bit grinned and ruffled his little friend's hair, which made Ponyboy giggle delightedly.

"Hey, Two-Bit, why do you never pick up your family photos when they've been taken? You always just leave them there." Sodapop asked, and Two-Bit smiled.

"Me, mama and Linda decided that the photographer must have a pretty boring life, so we give him our crazy photos to try and cheer him up." Two-Bit explained. That made everybody smile.

"Next!" the photographer shouted in an annoyed voice.

"Hey Shannon, do you think we could go before you? It's just that Bruce is starting to get annoyed and you know how he gets." Mrs Randle said sadly. Shannon smiled and put a hand on Mrs Randle's shoulder.

"Of course, Julia. We don't mind, do we boys?" Shannon asked her family.

Everybody answered "Of course not", except for Ponyboy.

"I mind." He said stubbornly, which earned him a smack on the back of the head from Darry.

Ponyboy looked as if he were about to cry, so Darry quickly pulled the young boy to him and held him to his chest as he muttered words to comfort his little brother.

"Next!" the photographer repeated impatiently, which made Steve grab his mother's hand and they both scrambled onto the bench.

Steve's father strolled over to sit next to his wife, and he growled at the photographer.

"I'll take as long as I wish." He yelled, which made the photographer shake his head.

"One…two…" the photographer began.

"Just take the stupid photo!" Steve and Mr Randle yelled at the same time.

The photographer immediately snapped the camera, which produced the black and white image of Steve, his mother and his father.

Mr Randle stood up and walked out of the building while his wife stumbled behind him.

"See you at school on Monday, Sodapop. My old man says I'm grounded until next week so I can't play with you after school." Steve said sadly. Sodapop frowned, but then grinned.

"Oh well, we can play at school!" Sodapop exclaimed, and Steve smiled.

"Steve, hurry up!" Steve's father bellowed, which caused Steve to almost fall over from the shock. Ponyboy stifled a giggle as Steve ran faster than ever so he didn't irritate his father any longer.

"Steve's so silly." Ponyboy chuckled.

"Next!" the photographer shouted, and the Curtis family all ambled over to the bench as the photographer cleaned his lens.

Darrell took Ponyboy from Darry's arms and sat down and placed Ponyboy on his lap. Ponyboy protested, but settled down once his father started bouncing his knee up and down.

Shannon sat next to Darrell and Ponyboy, and told Darry and Sodapop to sit on either side of them.

Darry sat next to his father and youngest brother while Sodapop took the space next to his mother.

"Alright everybody, smile for the camera!" the photographer yelled, now in a good mood. The Curtis's always seemed to have that effect on him.

Everybody had a big smile on their face, Ponyboy's was the biggest since Two-Bit was making funny faces behind the photographer's back. The smile turned into a giggle, and pretty soon, the whole Curtis family were laughing at Ponyboy's cute giggle.

The photographer smiled and said his favorite phrase:

"One…two…three!"

And with that, all of the Curtis's looked up at the camera, still laughing, and put their hands in the air.

"Done!" the photographer yelled, and all of the Curtis family stood up and started walking out of the building.

Darrell had kept Ponyboy in his arms, and began tickling his youngest son.

"D-Daddy, s-s-stop!" Pony screamed.

Darrell smiled and carried his baby boy to the car as Shannon jumped on Sodapop's back and laughed.

"If you can carry me, then I'll consider you a big boy. But if you can't, then you're my baby boy like Ponyboy, deal?" she chuckled; knowing there was no way that Sodapop would be able to carry her.

"F-fine!" Sodapop accepted, but he was already losing his breath.

Eventually, he dropped his mother who landed on both feet on the gravel ground.

"You'll always be my baby boy, Sodapop Patrick Curtis!" Shannon grinned, and started kissing her other baby boy on his nose.

Sodapop screamed and ran away and Shannon ran after him; there was no way her baby was going to get away without getting smothered by kisses.

Darry laughed and watched his family go crazy, until he saw a familiar curly haired brunette smiling at him.

"You've got a great family. I'll have to meet them sometime. I'm Connie by the way, and I know that you're Darry." She said, and Darry nodded with a smile on his face.

"So, do you wanna go to the movie theater today? I heard there's a new Sidney Poitier movie playing and I'd like to go see it. What about you?" Connie asked.

Darry was about to say yes, until he saw his family getting in the car with big grins on their faces.

Ponyboy was staring at Darry through the window, and though his face didn't show anything, Darry knew that Ponyboy wanted his big brother with them.

"Uh, sorry Connie but I've got other plans. Maybe another time this week? I might even be able to go tomorrow." Darry said, still looking at Ponyboy.

Connie saw that Darry wanted to be with his family and smiled; she was an only child but she knew if she had any brothers or sisters she'd rather be with them than some boy who she'd just met.

"Yeah, okay. Here's my number if you wanna go anywhere this week." She said, and handed Darry a white piece of paper. "I wrote it for you before while you were getting your family photo done." She smiled.

Darry took the number from Connie and winked at her.

"Thanks Connie. Anyway, I gotta go. See ya!" Darry grinned, and ran over to his father's blue ford and climbed in next to Sodapop.

"Thank God; we thought you were gonna go off with that girl and leave us!" Shannon told Darry, turning around and tickling her oldest son's tummy.

"Mom, no!" Darry laughed, and pushed her hand off of his stomach.

Ponyboy and Sodapop started laughing and their father smiled at them through the rear-view mirror.

"Say, instead of going home…who's up for ice-cream?!" Darrell yelled excitedly.

Everybody in the car raised their hands and yelled, "ME!" as Darrell laughed and drove. His beloved family all started singing one of their favorite Elvis songs that was playing on the radio and Darrell thought to himself: _I've truly got the best family that anybody could ever ask for_.

**AN: This is my one-shot (and story) on . What do ya'll think? I hope ya'll liked it! :D Please review, it'd make my day :) :)**


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